Sunday, May 21, 2006

At least that appears to be the case, with the Swedes leading the Czech Republic 4-0 heading into the third period at today's World Championship gold-medal final. The tournament has, once again, been a pretty dominating performance by Team Sweden.

Unbelievably, this is the first time any country has won gold in both the World Championship and the Olympics in the same year. (Prior to 1992, the WC was not held in Olympic years — other than 1972 and '76.)

The really impressive footnote for this Swedish team is that, unlike in Turin, they won without a squad made up of NHL players. In fact, only five members of this team played in the NHL this season: Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson, Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg and Michael Nylander.

Canada? Well, it wasn't pretty in today's bronze-medal game, a 5-0 loss to Finland, which continues this country's aversion to anything other than silver and gold in international play. Canada has just one bronze (1995) in the last 19 World Championship tournaments, and has won only two bronze medals ever at the Olympics (1956, 1968).

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About Me

A sportswriter at The Globe and Mail, James covers the NHL and the game of hockey. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, a radio and TV analyst with TSN and was the NHL network manager at SB Nation from 2008 to 2010. A graduate of Thompson Rivers and Ryerson universities, James grew up in Kamloops, B.C. — one of Canada's great hockey cities — and was a season ticket holder in the Blazers' glory years.

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